Monday, September 29, 2008

This would have been the second dumbest thing, but, I've never filmed congress. This video started with great promise - I had about 3/4 of a pint basket of sugar-sweet cherry tomatoes. I've never made sun-dried cherry tomatoes before, but had slow-roasted Roma tomato halves a long time ago, and they came out pretty good.

I'm not a big sun-dried tomato fan, the jarred ones taste like medicine to me, and I avoid them on menus whenever possible. I figured these would be much better - sweeter and juicier. What I got, 12 hours later, and who knows after how much cooking gas, were what best could be described as cherry tomato raisins.

They didn't taste bad, and Michele liked them, but considering all the time and wasted fuel, the tiny ramekin I ended up with surely didn’t justify the effort. Talk about severe shrinkage! I think you'll all agree this video recipe is of no practical use, other than maybe to mock me. Hey, at least the name is kind of catchy. Enjoy!

1. Humor. You can't get a better tag line for the finish of this video. "Do not go to the blog. I don't deserve it." Oh, the poetic irony. We were in stitches. 2. Humility. Any aspiring chef or home cook needs to have the curiosity to try new things and have them fail. It is highly encouraging to know it still happens, even to the professionals!

Thanks for the giggles. Just watch, we'll see Tomazins on the shelves of some health food stores soon. ;)

"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."Theodore Roosevelt

I make these lot but with either supermarket tomatoes to give them more flavor or garden tomatoes when there are too many of them. I call them 12 hour tomatoes. If you do this to green tomatoes, they taste a little like artichokes.

I make sundried tomatos ALL the time & never once thought about the environment...I cook them on stones (3-4 stones at a time)& use full sized tomatos & slice them thin, add garlic & salt & olive oil (of course) But they are so perfect to add to recipes & MUCH MUCH better than storebought (who also use ovens to make them) Now I can't wait to try cherry ones! Sorry you didn't enjoy yours :(

Chef John, If you ever get a food dehydrator, you should try this again with it.It'll take a lot less time than a regular oven (probably 5-6 hours I'm thinking) and does not waste as much energy an oven.